30 Minutes or Less -- Or the Downfall of Modern (Pizza) Civilization

One of the first slogans I remember from my childhood is "Avoid the Noid." Weekend nights would roll around and every once in a while, my parents would spring for pizza to be delivered. Us kids would wait anxiously and check the clock, because if that sucker was delivered one second after 3o minutes, it was free.

I always loved the idea of making a call and a short while later, a pizza would magically appear at my doorstep. A fact that a quick glance at my bank statements during my college years would easily confirm. But lately, I've grown a little sorrowful for my (and, I'm assuming, the rest of the country's) reliance on delivery to satisfy my pizza needs.

It used to be that whenever you wanted a slice, you'd head down to the local pizzeria, grab a booth, a pitcher of your favorite soda, and wait for it to come steaming out of the oven and straight to your table. How often do we do that any more? Pizza parlors have become a dying breed. They have an unmistakable scent. Walk inside and you're instantly reminded of friends' birthday parties in elementary school. Or celebrating the final game of little league. Sure, it's not as convenient (or miraculous) as having it show up at your doorstep. I'm willing to bet it's a heck of a lot better. Everything is fresh and there's no cardboard taste from those horrible boxes.

Do yourself a favor. The next time your craving some pizza, grab your family or some friends, flip through your phone book and look up your local place. It's probably named Tony's or Giuseppe's or Lucy's -- mine is called Maxie's. Head on over and get a fresh pie, you'll be happy you did. Who knows, if all of us do this every once in a while, we won't be stuck eating chain-store pizza from a cardboard box for the rest of our lives.



* Dominos has since done away with the 30 minute or its free policy. Allegedly because their drivers were causing too many accidents trying to beat the 30 minute mark. Dominos got sued so much, it eventually undid the guarantee. Stupid lawyers -- ruining all my pizza delivery fun.

Food Crush

Let me start of by making it clear that I love my wife. She is a wonderful person and I am thankful everyday that she settled for me.

With that in mind, let me tell you about a little crush I have. For a long time I saw a link on my sister's blog that said "Pioneer Woman Cooks." Now, while I enjoy cooking, I am neither a pioneer or a woman, so I did not click.

A few months ago, out of boredom, I decided to give it a try. What I saw astounded me. The food looked amazing, with step-by-step photos, instructions, and even some humor thrown in. I went through dozens of recipes in the archives. Before I knew it, I had spent hours on this website. I started to feel guilty. So I called my sister and asked if it was weird that I had a crush on this fabled "Pioneer Woman" given that 1) I am a happily married man; and 2) I had never even seen her. In fact I didn't even know if it was a single "her." It could have been a conglomerate of pioneer women who ran the site. The truth is, I didn't care, and neither should you.

The Pioneer Woman Cooks captures how I feel about food. Fancy when it should be, but more often than not, just down-and-dirty good food.

So go give it a read. You probably already have. It would have been time better spent than reading this dribble about my not-so-secret food crush. If you haven't, now's a great time to start -- She just updated her recipe index.

There goes my weekend.

2008 Year in Review: The Food Edition

2008 was been a pretty big year in the BSucio household. New baby, a move, a new job, and much, much more. Those topics have mostly been covered on Mrs. BSucio's blog. Gastronomically speaking, 2008 was pretty good as well. So, I thought I'd review the year's best meals, month-by-month, to recap the tastiness of the last twelve months.

JANUARY:

New Years Eve Cioppino -- Technically, this was a 2007 food, but since it would have still been digesting in 2008, I'll give it a pass. A great seafood stew, made with my brother-in-law. It was tomato-based with crab, shrimp, halibut and a lot of other good stuff. Served with some good bread.

FEBRUARY:

Pork Lo Mein/Potstickers: Old Peking, Moscow, ID. What a great way to celebrate Chinese New Year. As if I needed an excuse to eat Chinese food. This place was great. Surprisingly, Moscow had an abundance of Chinese places, but this one was best.

MARCH:

Pancetta-Wrapped Meatloaf: Nectar, Moscow, ID. Normally, you wouldn't expect to find meatloaf on a list like this, but Nectar's use of mostly local, fresh ingredients made this my favorite from its menu. Served with garlic mashed potatoes and grilled young carrots.

APRIL:

Korean BBQ Beef: Loco Grinz, Moscow, ID. Spicy, tender and served quick. It also came with sides of rice and tasty macaroni salad. It was quick food that became a family staple.

MAY:

Steak Dinner: Gritman Memorial Hospital. Ok, in reality, the steak was tough and over-cooked. But having the opportunity to sit down with my wife and sleeping one-day old baby, made for an unforgettable meal. If only it hadn't been cut short because of a Secured Transactions final the next day.

JUNE:

Prime Rib: Prime Rib, Washington, D.C. Hands down, best meal of the year. My friend, Cheesy Mac, and I were in D.C. to present papers for a conference on nonsmokers rights (sounds thrilling, I know). The stipend paid for our meal on Saturday night. We asked the concierge at the hotel for the best prime rib in town and they got us a reservation at this place. It was fancy -- jacket and tie required, but it didn't disappoint. It was the most delicious piece of beef I've ever eaten. I also had some jumbo shrimp as an appetizer.

JULY:

Patty's Special Burrito: Patty's Kitchen. I was alone throughout this month and had no hardware to cook with. So my meals were considerably terrible. I stopped at Patty's one night because I couldn't take one more Lean Pocket. This burrito could have single handedly helped me pass the bar. It kept me studying when I could have easily given up. A good meal can do that.

AUGUST:

Cowboy Ribeye: Chandler's, Boise, ID. My first week at my new job, I was taken along to a mediation on a big case. We had several attorneys on our side and they all got together to celerate (we had alreay partially won the case) and strategize for the mediation. The steak was cooked perfectly and served with a great blue cheese sauce.

SEPTEMBER:

Trout Almondine: Canyon Crest, Twin Falls, ID. My firm bought dinner for me and my wife on the day I found out I passed the bar. The meal was really good, but the relief of hearing the news was even better.

OCTOBER:

All-I-Could-Eat Sushi: Sushi Ya, Twin Falls, ID. Cheesy Mac and I hit this place not knowing what to expect. We were surprised at the freshness and quality. We had yellowfin, ahi, crab, shrimp, octopus, and a lot more.

NOVEMBER:

Thanksgiving Dinner: BSucio's house. I was assigned the turkey. I brined it and cooked it with some aromatics insided. It turned out great. And best of all, I made a decent gravy. Something I had never accomplished before.

DECEMBER:

Christmas Ham: BSucio's Mom and Dad's house. A Falls Brand, bone-in ham. It was scored with garlic cloves stuffed in it. We put a great mustard glaze on it. It was the best ham I've ever had.


So there they are. The best meals of the year. Some months were better than others, but they were all memorable. What were your best meals of the year?

Shrimp --- It's What's for Breakfast

We had a Christmas Party at our office yesterday. About 75 people showed. We had enough food for about three army battalions. That meant plenty of leftovers. I brought home the shrimp platter to refrigerate overnight and then take back today. This morning I thought I'd keep some at home for myself and take the rest of the platter back to the office.

My daughter, who had just rolled out of bed, flew down like a vulture to roadkill.

"What are those?"

"Shrimp."

"Are they good?"

"Yep."

"Can I have one?"

Mother from the other room: "It's 7:30 a.m.! No!"

Me (at about the same time): "Sure."

One went down, then two, then three. Pretty soon she had devoured half a dozen shrimp before 8:00. I was proud.

Then I turned my back for half-a-second. When I turned back the cover was off the plate of summer sausage and she was halfway through a huge chunk. Breakfast of champions.

She's definitely MY daughter.

Dancing with the Star .... umm Flakes

There a few other things I enjoy in this world besides soccer, cooking, and my family. When my family moved to my town 18 years ago, I saw an old snowboard in a thrift shop. I grew up in California and had never seen snow before and certainly never skied. I thought I would give snowboarding a shot. I convinced my parents to get me the board and long story short; it grew to be a passion and fairly time consuming throughout all of my high school and college years.

In anticipation of each coming season, my buddy and I, after drooling over the new Burton catalog, would anxiously await the first snowfall of the year. Not just because it meant the resorts would be open soon; it also meant that it was time for our sacrifice to the snow gods. That night, when the first snow fell, we'd strip down to our skivvies and run and slide through the snow for 10 minutes or so. This tradition became known as "The Snow Dance." Each year we did this, we were able to enjoy long and prosperous winters that included many, many (we're talking "going-on-academic-probation-many") trips to the mountains.

Life caught up to us, and eventually we were getting married, graduating, getting real jobs, having kids, and continuing education, and somehow the Snow Dance got lost in the shuffle (pun!). Coincidentally, our time spent on the mountain dramatically decreased (went downhill -- double pun!) as well. Some might blame the decrease on the "real life" factors mentioned previously, but there's a small part of me that thinks the snow gods are punishing us for our sins of omission. So to my buddy (you know who you are - and I don't think you read this anyway, but whatever) and to the rest of you, I say when the first real snow falls -- not this freakishly-early October junk-- we make our sacrifice in hopes of spending a little more time on the slopes this winter.

As a side note and caveat -- I will not be providing any free legal service should you happen to get picked up for indecent exposure. So be forewarned.

A Long-Awaited Reunion

The following conversation between my blog and me was recently captured and I gained exclusive publication rights. So consider yourself lucky, my loyal readers (which may be down to 1 or 2 now); only a select few are privy to this information.

Hail to the Chef: What's up, bro? Where you been? It's been, like, forever.

BSucio: Oh, not much. I've been busy and stuff. You know how it is.

HttC: No. I don't. You see, I'm a blog. I don't get out much. So please, elaborate.

BS (yeah, I know): Well, work has been keeping me busy. Being a lawyer is tough. Who knew? I did get sworn in before the state supreme court. That was cool. The next day they made us go to this class to tell us how to be lawyers.

HttC: And how was that?

BS: Fine, I guess. Really, it was 8 hours of "Don't sleep with your clients," "Don't steal your clients' money," and "Don't lie in court." Do we really need to have "rules" for that sort of thing? Shouldn't those be a given?

HttC: Enough about being a lawyer already; I get it. Seen any good movies lately?

BS: Nope, but the new Fall lineup of shows has been decent enough. Mrs. BSucio and I have been watching Chuck and the Office. I think she may have a crush on Chuck. It's cool though, cuz the ladies on that show aren't hurtin', if you know what I'm saying.

HttC: For sure, for sure.

BS: What about you? Anything new.

HttC: Not really. I mean, you know, I hang with Wikipedia every once and a while. Soccernet.com and I are still friends. Oh, I did make friends with these guys. Have you ever met them?

BS: LOL. ROTFL. Those cats are crazy-funny.

Speaking of funny stuff; I drove by Sonic tonight. Their sign said "Try our new Sausage Biscuit Dippers." There's a whole lot of jokes to be made there.

HttC: For realz. Biscuit Dippers?!? Sausage Biscuit Dippers?!?!? Someone in marketing overexaggerated their resume.

BS: Yeah. Oh and along those lines...the Independent candidate for the Idaho Senate race?

HttC: You talking about Pro-Life?

BS: That's Mr. Pro-Life to you. I mean, I'm all for getting behind a political cause you believe in. But changing your name to reflect said cause...

HttC: No kidding. Insane.

Any good soccer news out there?

BS: Well, Manchester United have started out a little rough this season, but Rooney seems to be hitting his form, scoring goals almost at will. And Real Salt Lake Scored a goal with 30 seconds left on the clock in the last game of the season to put them into the playoffs for the first time.
I went a little nuts, running around the house, screaming and such.

HttC: You're weird.

BS: Yeah, but now that I'm a lawyer, it should be pretty easy to change my name to Mr. Manchester RSL.

Well, I better run, I've got to get into the office early tomorrow.

HttC: Cool man. It's good to talk to you. Are you going to be gone forever again?

BS: I hope not. I should be able to get into a routine sometime soon and I'll be back more often. If I'm not back in a while, it's Guitar Hero's fault.

Never Say Never: Denim's Revenge

My mother used to tell me this whenever I would say "I'm never going to..." or "That will never..." For the most part, she was right, but I always thought there would be a few things I could bank on.

Turns out, she was right.

When I left home over 10 years ago, I NEVER thought I would return to my home town. I always liked it and always enjoyed coming home for a visit, but I could never fathom a set of circumstances that would bring me back here full time.

I now live in my home town, and I couldn't be happier about it. Despite just about every new person I meet asking me if my mom is "Mrs. BSucio" or if "Mr. BSucio" the former FBI guy, was my dad, we are really enjoying ourselves here.

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When I had kids, I was excited. Sure, I was nervous, but I had always looked forward to being a dad. With that said, I swore up and down that I would NEVER drive a minivan. I have friends who have made this statement (you know who you are), and it's a common sentiment among new fathers.


This is our family car. The other day, in a moment of testosterone-driven glory, I was at a red light and needed to cross three lanes of traffic in about 50 yards to get to Costco. There was a jacked-up truck and a sporty little car in the two lanes to my left. The light turned green and I hit the gas. The tires squealed and my daughter started to cry because we were going so fast. I left the other two cars in the dust and was the proud driver of a kick-ass minivan. Just you wait my minivan-rejecting friends; just you wait.

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I have my quirks. I admit this openly. I like "weird" sports like soccer. I couldn't tell you who won the Super Bowl last year, but I can tell you how to deglaze the pan after searing halibut to make some of the best sauce known to man. And those of you who have known me for some time, know that I NEVER wear jeans. I don't think they're comfortable and so I've always worn khakis or some other option.


Well, after 4 years in college, 2 years in Panama, 4 years getting some "real-world" experience, 3 years of law school and almost two decades of avoiding jeans and I have finally started my career. I show up on Day One and what is everybody wearing? You guessed it -- Denim City. My first act as a lawyer was to head to Old Navy and pick out a couple of pairs of jeans.

That, my friends, is why you NEVER say never.